The Italian transmission operator Enel X has recently become one of the winning bidders in Terna's bidding activities. For this purpose, Enel X signed a contract with Fluence, a US energy storage system technology and service provider, and Fluence will provide two battery energy storage systems for the project.

Transmission system operator Terna held a pilot bid for fast standby service in 2020. After receiving a bid for a total installed capacity of 1,327MW, it awarded a five-year contract for an energy storage system with an installed capacity of 250MW. The weighted average price of the contract is 29,500 euros/MW/year (33,500 USD), which is far below the expected price of approximately 78,000 to 108,000 euros/MW/year.

The two main winning bidders in the fast standby service auction conducted by Terna are Enel X and ENGIE. Enel X won a 65MW contract and ENGIE won a 70MW contract. The auction is divided into three regions: one for the central and northern regions of Italy, another for the central and southern regions, and the last for Sardinia.

Fluence recently stated that it has signed a contract with Enel X to deliver two battery energy storage systems with a total installed capacity of 40MW. Its battery energy storage system will use Fluence's sixth-generation energy storage product GridStack and deploy them at a site in northern Italy.

Fluence OS, Fluence's software management platform, will manage and participate in grid services. The company pointed out in a press release that as Italy begins to phase out coal-fired power plants, its grid structure is about to undergo major changes, requiring more and more flexibility to achieve the integration of renewable energy.

Panagiotis Stamoulis, Fluence's Southern European Marketing Director, said: "As Italy and other Southern European countries adopt innovative technologies to achieve their decarbonization goals, energy storage systems with advanced software control will play an increasingly important role."

A source from the Italian clean energy industry said that in order to achieve decarbonization, Italy will close more fossil fuel power plants, and in order to promote the deployment of renewable energy, it needs supporting deployment of energy technologies that ensure flexibility and flexibility. In this case, it is obviously a battery energy storage system.

The source said that Terna initially launched a capacity auction in 2019, when it was expected to award the contract to a natural gas generator, but found that the battery energy storage system can also participate in the competition and win. After discussing with industry stakeholders, the grid operator therefore decided to hold a pilot rapid reserve service tender.

Paolo Marino, director of REF-E, a Milan-based energy market consulting agency, said at the Energy Storage Summit in 2021 that the rules of the grid market need to be reformed to achieve the full deployment of battery energy storage systems.

Lithium-ion battery (LIB) has become the main energy storage solution in modern social life. Among them, lithium iron phosphate batteries are a perfect substitute for lead-acid batteries, and are the first choice for grid-connected peak shaving, off-grid energy storage, photovoltaic energy storage, UPS, data center and other industries.

Solar power generation system with lithium battery energy storage system is a very promising clean energy.